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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Marylou Brombach’s Red Blood Cell Count

Part 2 of Jude Nerdworthy Monster Fighter in the Romance of the Twinkler

Mrs. Brombach rolled out from under the family’s Chevy pickup. “Marylou was feeling a bit peaked so she stayed home. You understand, don’t you Jude?”

“Of course, Mrs. Brombach. You didn’t happen to notice any puncture marks on Marylou’s neck, did you?” You have to ask the right question even if this one turned out to be wrong.

“I didn’t notice anything other than she didn’t feel well when her cousin Ferdy brought her home.” Mrs. Brombach rolled back under the truck.

I exited the garage into the Brombach backyard. At the kitchen door, I knocked. Marylou shuffled to the door and let me in. “Hello, Jude. I’m not feeling my best but you may as well come in.”

Marylou wore a shorty robe with lots of leg appeal sticking out the bottom. The top didn’t exactly wrap as tight as the blouses she wore to school, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t notice any bite marks. I pushed her shoulder length brunette hair back to check her neck, front and back.

“Jude, what are you doing?” Marylou asked.

“Checking for vampire bites from that Ferdinand Minglebocker.”

“Please don’t be jealous, Jude. Ferdy was just a little fling. I was enchanted by his sparkle. Or was I sparkled by his enchantment?”

“You mean it’s over now?”

“Yes, he was a brute.” Marylou poured a cup of coffee and added three tablespoons of sugar and about half a cup of milk. She used a very large mug. She grabbed a one-pound package of raw hamburger out of the fridge.

“If he didn’t bite your neck, why are you feeling so weak this morning?”

“Oh, Jude, I never said he didn’t bite me. He just didn’t bite me on the neck, silly.” Marylou pulled a kitchen chair up close to mine and sat down. Her robe rose up on her leg higher than maybe she would have wanted had she felt better. She tore the cellophane off the hamburger package. On the north end of her thighs, I spotted a thick coating of sparkles.

My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, Marylou, you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what, Jude? Oh, you see the sparkles down south. No, I didn’t, but he was so aggressive. I wiggled as best as I could to avoid his fangs, but he got pretty darn close to a homerun, see?” Marylou opened her robe to expose the area that’s as far up her leg as possible to qualify as not quite a homerun but way past third base. I’d never viewed her legs that far north of her thigh before, except that time she wore the skimpy bikini on our date to the Michigan Dunes, which of course is another story.

Anyway, back to Marylou Brombach’s homerun spot, there next to the tiny red lace thingy that ran around her panty leg hole on the right side. In in the middle of a thick coating of rainbow sparkles, were two pinprick sized holes.

My finger was within an eighth of an inch of rubbing off the sparkles and feeling the pinprick holes when Mrs. Brombach walked in from the backyard.